Daniel Berrigan

Poet

Priest

Peace Activist

A poet, Jesuit priest, and antiwar activist, Daniel Berrigan (1921-2016) has been called “the conscience of a generation.” He became a household name in 1968, when, along with his brother Philip and seven others, he seized draft records at Catonsville, Maryland, and burned them with napalm, igniting widespread religious opposition to the Vietnam War. “Better the burning of paper than of children,” he told the federal judge who sentenced him to prison.Read Full Biography

Undaunted, Berrigan continued protesting. In 1980, again with his brother Philip and others, he launched the Plowshares movement by hammering on nuclear missiles in a symbolic act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Daniel Berrigan published over fifty books in his lifetime, including an autobiography, To Dwell in Peace, several collections of his poetry, and scripture commentaries on Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah. He died on April 30, 2016, in New York City at the age of ninety-four.

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Acclaim

A modern prophet’s commentary on an ancient prophet’s words, this book tells more truth about our times than many want to hear.…Berrigan’s reflections will be difficult for those whose instincts are compromise and timidity.

John K. Stoner, author, If Not Empire, What?

Who better to read Daniel’s political poetry and stories of resistance than a contemporary Daniel who has recited just such poetry and practiced just such resistance? Less a commentary than a re-narration, this makes Daniel’s Daniel dangerously relevant.

Ched Myers, author, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?

I recommend this book to all who want to understand the Bible and their own lives in the light of it.

Richard T. McSorley, Georgetown Center for Peace Studies

Daniel reveals Berrigan as a priest who has been on the front lines as both an antiwar dissenter and writer for so long that he has become the line. He stands all but alone among contemporary writers trying to make connections between the demands of practicing biblical faith and crafting powerful literature.

Colman McCarthy, The Washington Post

This is Berrigan at his best. If he had written only one book, I would have wanted it to be this one.

Joan Chittister, author, A Passion for Life

The Book of Daniel is here retold in a way that highlights its contemporary significance... Berrigan does a remarkable job of opening up for us a text only rarely studied in the synagogues.

Tikkun Magazine

Berrigan's fiery prose illuminates both his own passion and that of the Book of Daniel.

Publishers Weekly

Berrigan's encounter with his namesake makes for lively, challenging reading. This is commentary not so much on the biblical book as on the world.

Booklist

The subversive call to Daniel the Prophet and the writing call to Daniel Berrigan both shine forth in this brilliant book.

Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation

Berrigan brings alive the biblical Book of Daniel in an astonishing way. We learn of the power of faith when joined to the courage of disobedience. The line between prose and poetry is erased as is the line between the past and the present.

Howard Zinn, author

To read this book is to risk every comfortable excuse one has to postpone resistance and reform.

John Francis Kavanaugh, author, Following Christ in a Consumer Society

These are barbed-wire words that protect truth’s heart. Who can be a more apt scribe to write such an account than Daniel Berrigan, who has walked in the ancient Daniel’s footsteps in lion’s den and prison cell?